Patna: The Bihar government wants back 30 per cent of its power allocation in NTPC's Barh Super Thermal Power Station (STPS) stage-II, which it had decided to surrender in 2016 citing higher cost, ensuing huge financial liability and cheaper electricity procured from Indian Energy Exchange (IEX).
The volte face has come in less than two years via a letter written by Bihar's principal secretary, energy, Pratyaya Amrit, requesting the union power ministry to allow it to withdraw its earlier decision to surrender 30 per cent of the total 1057MW power allocated to it in Barh STPS stage-II.
Barh STPS is the first super critical thermal power plant in the state. Its stage-II has at present two functional units of 660MW each, totalling 1320MW, of which 80 per cent or 1057MW was allocated to Bihar. The state, in 2016, had decided to surrender 321MW of this.
"A revised assessment of the overall power purchase portfolio of the Bihar distribution companies was undertaken to assess the average cost of power purchase and the status of new sources of power generation. As a result of this revised assessment in demand-supply scenario and the declining per unit costs of Barh stage-II, it emerged that Bihar would continue to need the existing power contracted from Barh stage-II," the letter written by Amrit says.
The letter, a copy of which is with The Telegraph, goes on: "In view of the above, the state of Bihar would like to withdraw its earlier decision and request of surrendering 30 per cent of its allocated capacity from Barh STPS stage-II."
Power cost from Barh STPS, when the state government had decided to surrender 30 per cent of its quota, was hovering between Rs 4 and Rs 5 per unit. It was saving 46 paise per unit while procuring power from IEX.
"That time our Barh STPS stage-II was being fired on imported, as well as, auctioned coal, which was costly, leading to high cost of production and price of energy per unit," a senior NTPC official said on the condition of anonymity.
The NTPC official pointed that the rate of power from Barh STPS has now come down to Rs 3.71 per unit over use of coal from its own mines located in Hazaribagh, while the rate on IEX is between Rs 4 and Rs 6 per unit.
